Article,
What is a perfect translation?
Babel: Revue internationale de la traduction/International Journal of Translation, (1997)
Abstract
Perfection in translation was simply out of the question in the old days. The old saying on the dichotomy between the faithful and the beautiful, facetious as it might sound, actually hit the nail on the head. With the concept of loyalty hitched to a word-for-word equivalence, there was a tyranny of words. No translation could possibly be both stylisticly desirable and “faithful.” The principle of equivalent effect has broken that tyranny and made it possible to pursue perfection in translation. The ultimate criterion of loyalty proper, as it is understood now, does not rely on the equivalence of words, but on the equvalence of effect.
